Get in line — the crowds will always be there

This August, I published a long-winded, 7,000-word article in
The Surfer's Journal
called “The Swarm.” The article attempted to take on the issue of crowds — perhaps the most important issue facing surfers today — from all angles.

To do this, I spoke to three of the sport's most iconic surfers, each from different eras and different locations: Mickey Munoz from California, Gerry Lopez from Hawaii and Rabbit Bartholomew from Australia.

Each had watched surfing change from what it once was — a small, esoteric pursuit undertaken only against a host of challenges — to what it now is, a “sport” enjoyed by more than 4 million people and an industry with annual sales between $10 billion and $20 billion.

I asked each of these iconic surfers how to deal with these changes to the surfing landscape. In gross oversimplifications, Lopez espoused calmness, Munoz practicality, and Bartholomew finding more spots to surf. I paired these conversations with a fair bit of data and reporting, and came to a more full understanding of the bleak conclusion that each of these surfers had reached long ago: that the act of surfing is irrevocably changed, that our surf breaks are incredibly overcrowded, that surfing will never go back to what it once was.

Of course, I already knew this, as does any regular surfer. But it's an easy enough fact to cope with on a day-to-day basis. You find ways around the crowding. You surf at off-hours and non-peak spots. You take surf trips. You find places close to home where you can sneak a few waves in isolation. When necessary, you surrender, enter the fray, gird yourself to confront the crowd, or attempt, as best as possible, to be Zen, to surrender to it.

But there are times when the issue forces itself upon you. Last Friday, for instance, when a northwest swell spread across the Pacific. That swell wasn't anything spectacular here in San Diego, but it came on a holiday weekend, on a sunny day, and the fact that it had been forecast so far in advance (“Waves For Thanksgiving!” headlines on surfing Web sites screamed early in the week) meant that most beaches were crowded.

A mid-morning, coastal drive from Oceanside to Imperial Beach revealed what a surfer in a surfing populace like San Diego would expect: lineups teeming with small, black blobs against the clear morning blue, a dearth of parking spots, boards on cars, boards in cars, boards strapped in strange ways to the roofs of cars. In other words, a swarm.

You surf the same spots long enough and you get to know people, even if you know nothing about them other than what kinds of boards they ride, whether they're more apt to go right or left on an A-frame. Standing on a sandy beach looking out toward the surf, I nodded to a few such guys I know, and in the look they sent back I saw the recognition that we were all up against the same thing. It's just crowded. There's no news in this. Surf historians note that surfers have been complaining about the crowds since they returned home from World War II. I get embarrassed when surfers take on proprietary attitudes. I can't stand localism. But it's hard not to feel affronted when you're so committed to something and it becomes overrun.